1

What Illinois Has Done for the War.

STATE OF ILLINOIS.
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT.
SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 19, 1861.

To the People of the State of Illinois:

For the purpose of giving you information of the number, condition and wants of our troops, as well as the policy of this department, I present the following report of Hon. Allen C. Fuller, Adjutant-General of the State, prepared in response to a communication calling for information from his office in relation thereto — and the suggestions of which I fully approve.

The subjects of uniforms, equipments, subsistence and finances, will be presented in other reports, now in process of preparation by the same officer.

I have the pleasure to inform the public that during the last two weeks, I have been receiving and distributing, and am now distributing, near six thousand stand of new and superior arms — first having sent a competent agent to our scattered regiments to ascertain the condition of each with reference to the number, kind and quality of its arms, with a view to the equitable distribution thereof, having due regard to those most exposed to the enemy.

The State is now also receiving daily at the Arsenal in Springfield, the fourteen batteries of artillery, obtained from the Secretary of War during my last visit to Washington, consisting of 84 guns, with projectiles, carriages, caissons, harness and all equipments complete, equal in quality to any in the service, or in the world, and which with the batteries, we already have in actual service, will be sufficient to arm and equip the two artillery regiments now fast approximating to complete and perfect organization.

I also have assurances of a most reliable character, that arms of a superior quality will at an early day, be received, sufficient to supply all our unarmed regiments, and sufficient, I hope, also to supply the places of the poor and defective arms now in the hands of many of our troops.

I feel fully warranted in saying that in point of the numbers of our troops in proportion to population, in amply prevision for comfortable subsistence, in superiority of quality and sufficiency of uniform, and also in true courage and chivalrous daring and achievement, the Grand Army of Illinois will be unsurpassed by any State in the Union.

RICHARD YATES.